Travel | timistravels

Hadrian’s Gate/ Columns of Zeus and Panathenaic Stadium, Athens Greece

by timistravels

12/16/2012

We visited Hadrian’s Gate, an arch that was made of marble. It is on the street that goes from the old city of Athens to the new section that was built by Hardrian in 131-132 AD. It is 18 meters high and 13 meters wide. The crazy thing about the gate is that it is right on one of the busiest roads in Athens. Trying to get a picture without a car was not an easy task!

We continued towards the Columns of Zeus. They are right in the middle of town and were dedicated to Zeus, the king of all Olympian gods. The temple was built in 6^th century BC, but in the 3^rd century it started to deteriate and started to be a ruin soon after. After the fall of the Roman Empire much of the marble and building material was stolen to build other things. We could still see a lot of the ruins.

Last stop of the morning was the Panathenaic Stadium. It is the oldest stadium in the world and the first modern Olympic Games were held here in 1986. Now it is more a less a museum and once you walk through the tunnel it is full of many items from past Olympic games. Some of the torches are pictured.

Now days the stadium is used for some Greek sporting events as well as in 2004 when the final legs of the Olympic Marathon were run there.

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Sounion Ruins, afternoon trip out of Athens

by timistravels

Monday, 12/17/12

Our only day trip out of Athens was a few hour tour to the Sounion Ruins. We had scheduled this trip at a travel agency in the morning and we picked up at a hotel at 2. The ride down was nice, mostly through the city and finally on some winding roads. We had about 1 hour to walk around there.

Cape Sounion is on the Attica Peninsula, about 45 miles south of Athens. It is the ruins of Poseidon, the god of the sea. What is interesting is that is surrounded on 3 sides by the sea and a popular place to watch sunsets, but we left before the sunset! The structure dates back to 700 BC.

This spot, according to legend is where the king of Athens, Aegeus jumped to his death off the cliff and hence why the sea is not called the Aegean Sea.

In the early 1800’s an English poet Lord Byron carved his name in one of the columns. He was enthralled with the area. You can no longer see the inscription because it is barracked off.

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Athens, Greece; visit to the Partenon and museum

by timistravels

Dec. 14-18, 2012

Landed in Greece from Paris about 2 in the afternoon and caught the train into town. We had good instructions how to get to our apartment, and fortunately a little help from locals finding the exact building. The apartment we rented was about 3 blocks from the Parthenon and a perfect little apt. We couldn’t have been in a better location.

Acropolis, meaning “top of the hill” was visible from almost anywhere we walked during these 4 days. down at the base of the hill was where the original community was located, and about every 100-300 feet was another ‘ruin.’ It was amazing.

We met up with our cousins, cousin who lives in Athens. Was fun to walk around with Clarri, her husband Demetri and their 5 year old son, Antony. We had the most amazing meal with them at an outdoors cafe. I had ground lamb kabob with a yogurt sauce over it… incredible. There was plenty of food at the table and we enjoyed all the flavors of the area.

There are some positive things about traveling places in the off season. We got to the Parthenon to tour it about 9:30 a.m. and we were about the ONLY ones there. AMAZING. That is why we have pics of only us at the top, that would have never happened in June!

Some interesting information on the Parthenon, first off it was made for the Goddess Athena, and construction began in 447 BC and took over 15 years to build. It took over 16,500 pieces of marble to build it, the carvings/artwork were based on Greek Mythology, as well as the Greek/Amazon battle and the Trojan war. It is said that you could see this from 50 miles out on the ocean!

It took 13 columns for each side and 6 columns for each end. Each end is topped with the ‘frieze’

The ‘frieze” which is the decorative end caps for lack of a better explanation, is on each end. Each depicts a story of 115 blocks. There are 378 figures and of these 220 are animals, mostly horses. The east end frieze depicts the birth of Athena and the rising of the sun and setting of the moon. The west end frieze is the mostly horsemen and depicts the different rankings of each. It highlights the contest with to name the city and when Athena won it explains why the town is now called Athens.

We spent a lot of time each day walking around the base of the Acropolis. The “old town” area had stores, restaurants, and just great people watching. All and all we enjoyed the 4 days we spent in Athens. Any longer and we would have run out of things to do and any shorter and we would have missed out on some things.

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20 Hours in Paris

by timistravels

Dec. 13, 2012

When we found out we’d have a layover in Paris between the States and Athens, Greece we wanted to take advantage of it. Clearing customs was absolutely a breeze, but it took our luggage almost 1 hour to get to us. Finally we grabbed the airport shuttle to the Hilton where we would call home for the night! We had 3 main goals on our list and we managed to do each of them!

1. Notre Dame

2. The Arc de Triomphe

3. Eiffel Tower

Bought an all day/all city transportation pass. I believe it was 21 Euro for the day, but well worth it. Hopped on train and into city! When we got off the train, it took us a while to get our bearings, but once we did we were off!

Notre Dame is beautiful! What more can be said? Hopped on train and off to Arc.

The Arc de Triomphe was built to honor the fallen soldiers from the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Names are inscribed on many of the surfaces. There is also the WWI tomb of the unknown soldier here.

Short hop on the train to the highlight of the night, the Eiffel Tower. It had just turned 8:00 when our train pulled in and the Tower was doing it’s 5 minutes of twinkling. So cool to see it for the first time with that happening.

We decided we HAD to go to the top, even though it was cold and sort of a gloomy night. There were plenty of other folks up there with us, but there were not that many people that it was crowded.

We were on top for the 9:00 twinkle and after grabbing a quick bit for dinner, saw the 10:00 twinkle as we left on the train.

Back to the room by 11:00 pm, exhausted and thrilled that we had this opportunity.

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Horse Island, 30 minute boat ride away

by timistravels

Early Oct. 2012

Our friends Rob and Nell have built a ‘cabin’ on Horse Island, however it is the nicest ‘cabin’ I have ever been in. Horse Island is across from the end of Douglas Island. Rob does amazing work with his construction and Nell’s artistic flair is highlighted throughout the house. They invited Harry and me over for a night and we took them up on the offer. It was a beautiful boat ride over. We ran into Ron and Nan who have a cabin around the corner.

We sat on the porch with adult beverages, watched whales go by as well as sea lions and seals. It was beautiful. In the morning we watched the sun rise and could see Mendenhall Glacier across the water.

The highlight of the night was the cedar hot tub/bath they have. Everyone got their turn in the 1 person tub and enjoyed a good bath! They have 2 bedrooms upstairs and had just put a door on theirs, so they didn’t have to be worried with Kootz bothering them during the night.

All and all it was a great night and we sure did appreciate their invitation!

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Home 4 hours and headed south to Wrangell, Alaska

by timistravels

I had been invited to Wrangell to work with their school board on Monday night, Nov. 19th. Only glitch, we landed from Maui at 9:30 that morning! I made it work! Though I was a tad tired by Monday night!

Wrangell is yet another small, isolated community in Southeast Alaska. It is known as the entrance to the mighty Stikine River and their petroglyphs that can be seen on a walk along the shores of Petroglyph Beach. I did not do that this trip, BUT did it several summers ago when I went there with an Elderhostel trip.

The community is quite close-knit and the people are wonderful. I ate at Diamond’s for breakfast and it was like stepping back in time. Next time I hope for more time to explore the town.

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Maui, Hawaii~some relaxation and fun in the sun

by timistravels

After working 8 out of 9 weekends, it was time for some relaxation. To start off the trip, on the fight over we had nobody sitting with us in the emergency row so we get all three seats are self, it sure was a nice bonus. We landed about 10:30 p.m. and went to get out rental car, a ‘compact’ however, when we got there they only had a full size Silverado truck or a Yukon… we figured the Silverado would help us look like a local so we took it! We stayed ‘up hill’ in the town of Haiku where we have stayed before. Our hosts, Kolette and Adam have a sweet apartment above their garage that we have stayed in before. They charge $50/night and it is a great deal. We love it there b/c it is not in the touristy areas, but rather a bit off the beaten path.
First full day we found a new beach it was really nice (in the end we went there many days of the trip). We then hit Savers and Costco, stopped to watch the surfers at “Jaws” then have dinner at the Fishplace in Paia.

Second day Friday we went back to the beach but a little further down where we could go snorkeling in a better spot however it was too windy to snorkel that day so we just relaxed. We went into Kihei and had lunch at a pita place, then went home, showered and went to a movie, Harry and I rarely go to movies, but it sure was a nice treat, we went to see Argo and it was a good movie.

Saturday got up and went to the flea market/swap meet as they call it. Bought a lot of jewelry from my favorite little jeweler, Sandy. She remembered me from last year which was sweet. We then headed back to the beach and stayed until sunset, snorkeled little but it was still pretty cloudy in the water. We went to the Pita place and have the calamari I been craving and then home and where just relaxing around the apartment.

On Sunday we did the typical going to the beach laying out all day finished another book and snorkeling saw first turtle. We just caught a quick dinner at some brewpub and headed home.

Monday we thought we drive to the north end of the island but it was really sunny so we actually went to Makena for the first time of this trip and stayed most of the day. The sun is setting about 5:45 during our vacation, so we’d pack up about 5:30. This morning as we left the house together few miles away and I realized forgot my wallet! But what was funnier is that on the way home, we were 10+ miles away from the beach and Harry remembered he’d forgotten his shoes after he’d showered off… so we turned around and went back, they were still there! A day of forgetting!
On Tuesday we did a normal beach thing saw a lot of turtles while we snorkeled. We had dinner at a traditional Hawaiian place called ‘Da Kitchen.
Wednesday we got up and we decided to drive around the north end of the island! We took a hike at the “8 mile marker”, called Maka Maka Ole. Hiked about 2 miles into the jungle and found a poolwith a waterfall flowing into it. Beautiful. We continued around the N end of the island and hiked down to the blowhole. The other amazing thing on this hike was the remnants of the lava flow. Such amazing formations are made when hot lava hits the ocean water. After the blowhole we went to the Maui Brewery had some good food! Once in Lahaina we ended the night with Skyfall (007), another movie (I don’t think we’ve ever gone to 2 movies in one year let alone one week).
Thursday when we got up it was pouring rain up near our place, so we headed up to Haiku where we had some breakfast which is disappointing and we headed over to our normal beach! It was exceptionally windy but we stay there until the sunset and then we went to dinner at Coconuts, fish taco’s! YUMMY

Friday we opted to go back to Makena for day where Harry boggie boarded most of the day. He loves doing that so much! Once we got home “Lucky” the homeowners cat hung out w us for a while.

Saturday was a slow morning, we returned to the swap meet bought some local coffee a ceramic, a piece of artwork for our travel room. Back to our favorite beach where we saw a lot of turtles and other cool fish while snorkeling. To end the day we had a fun chance to meet up with some Juneau friends, Carrie, Mark and their kids. We ate at Flatbread pizza in Paia.

Sunday was a cloudy morning. Off to Keawakapu Beach for one last day in the sun. Did the full day 10-5, We snorkeled 2 times and saw a lot of turtles. One time there were 5 huge blue fish and a baby turtle all in one eyeshot. So beautiful.

We were sad to pack up and say goodbye to Maui but I am sure that we will get back there again within the next few years. Loved the trip!

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The birds and other interesting things on St. Paul Island! (Part 2)

by timistravels

Sept. 17-20 Trip to St. Paul Island,,, Part 2…

The Pribilof’s are known as the Galapagos of the North due to the fact that there are so many different species of birds on the islands. I would not consider myself adept at birds, but after this day, I have a better appreciate of those that love this ‘activity.’

St. Paul Island is home to millions of seabirds nesting on the steep shores of the island. There are also rare Asiatic birds, blown off course during their migration or dropping in just briefly on their way to other breeding and nesting destinations.

The first birds we saw were both Tufted Puffin and Horned Puffin (white breast). It was amazing how close we were to them and how incredibly beautiful they are.

As we continued our tour on this beautiful fall day, it was so clear that we saw Otter and Walrus Island as well as St. George Island, not always able to be spotted from St. Paul! Harbor Seals breed on Otter Island, several miles southwest of St. Paul Island, but nonetheless are often seen off St. Paul shores. Occasionally, Steller sea lions haul out on St. Paul, but usually take refuge in the rookery at Walrus Island, some 10 miles northeast of St. Paul. On extremely rare occasions, Grey whales, Orcas, and walrus are observed offshore.

We spotted wild celery all over the place, however, it was past its prime for eating.

“Sea Lion Neck” was the next stop on our tour. Currently it is only open to Sea Lion hunters (Native’s only) and this tour! At the end of the road, 11 miles away from town, is Webster lake and a memorial to the old church that once stood at that site. There is also a cabin/house that anyone can rent (for free) if they care to go out there and explore.

Birds we saw on this adventure:

Snow bunting
Sharp tailed sandpiper (Asian Born)
Rock sandpiper
Fox sparrow and goldencrown sparrow both from mainland, AK
Pacific golden plover
Wandering tattler
Ruddy turnstones
Red faced Cormorants
Red legged kittiwake (big eyes, red legs) very rare, ‘chasers’ come here to see these
Common kittiwake (black legs) one of most common gulls in world
Lapland longspur (song bird)
American pipit

We DID NOT SEE but our guide has spotted a White Tailed Eagle (sea Eagle) here this summer. It probably stopped over enroute from Russia. Neither did we see the elusive shrew, which is sometimes spotted under the pieces of plywood out near one of the points.

After the tour we made it back to our little apartment and decided it was time for dinner. The Trident Plant, where million’s of pounds of crab are processed each spring (see March blog) was a bit slower this time of year as they were now processing halibut. For $20 pre paid you can go to the cafeteria and eat, and this time of year, endless halibut is well worth $20! There were very few staff from the plant there and we enjoyed dinner there 2 nights in a row!
We also ran into the store and there photo’s are a reminded of the high cost of living in these remote rural communities, can you believe the price of soup? (cans are heavy!).
So ends my exciting trips to the Pribilof Island’s for this year! All 3 were an adventure and I am blessed to be able to get to these places for WORK.

timi

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St. Paul Island; a 5 hour tour, a 5 hour tour!

by timistravels

I returned to St. Paul Island in the Pribilof’s for a few days to do workshops with the board and work in the schools with my colleague Jenni. If you go back in the blogs you will see I was here in March. I’ll remind you that St. Paul is part of the Pribilof Islands and sit 880 miles W of Anchorage.

It was so different being there in Sept. vs in March. It had a feel of mid-west fall days, though no trees to have leaves that are changing colors, the plants and ground cover are changing to their fall hues.

The first night we walked down to the end of town and watched the seals from a distance as the beaches are all off limits to people. It was a cloudy night but you could see seals playing in the water, swimming and jumping all around as well as 100’s of them on the hillside.

I was to leave on Wed. however a volcano eruption in Russia caused problems with air quality and my plane did not make it out to pick me up, so I had a ‘free’ afternoon after doing some workshops in the morning.

Jenni and I decided to contact St. Paul Island Tours to see if we could go on a tour and thankfully they had an open calendar. Doug, our guide picked us up and stated the adventure.

First stop, Reef Point where there were 1000’s of fur seals. Such a interesting to come upon these seals in their natural habitat and watch them for almost an hour. This is what I learned.

In early May, the males, 5 years or older come to the beaches and ‘mark’ their territory.
These spaces tend to be 12’-15’ from one another.
On June 1, the rookeries are closed and remain off limits until mid-October .
These “Beach Master” males find their spot and wait about a month and a half for the females to arrive in the end of June.
90% of the females give birth immediately, within 24 hours, once they snuggle up with a Beach Master.
mom nursing a baby
Beach Master Males can have anywhere from 40-60 females in ‘their’ space, and the weaker Masters can have as little as 1 or 2 females as they get too old to defend their space.
Males become Beach Masters at around the age of 7, females can get pregnant as young as 5 but usually don’t start having pups until they are 7/8.
Once they give birth, the male impregnate the females immediately.
The females will deliver these pups next June/July.
Hunting for the Aleut Natives begins at the end of July and into early Aug.
About 200 males are killed during the hunt and the 3 year old male seals are targeted, though 2 -4 year olds are taken during the open hunt.
The Beach Master males head back into the waters in late August though a few linger until Sept. They are hungry and in search of food.
Females and pups head into the waters in Nov. and separate shortly after this.
Males live until about 12-15 years of age.
Females live to between 20-21 years of age.
Much like humans you can tell their age by how ‘white’ their whiskers are… the more white, the older the seal!

I will write about the rest of the tour in another blog!

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Taku Glacier; 2 trips in one week, so very different!

by timistravels

Thursday, Aug. 30, 2012

Harry and I had a certificate for a ‘glacier hike’ that we had won, but needed to use it by Sept. 1. We had tried other days over the summer but had not had a lot of luck, BUT our luck changed on a PERFECT beautiful day in Juneau. We arrived at North Star Treking and boarded the helicopter with 3 Canadian’s that were on a cruise ship. We’d been told that b/c it was SO nice out we’d get to go on Taku Glacier vs on Mendenhall Glacier, Taku is only accessible on perfect days, where the Mendenhall is an option on cloudy socked in days.
We flew over Split Thumb and over some hanging glaciers,

off in the distance we could see Canada and Devil’s Peak.

Both had new snow on the tops!!! We continued over the icefield and up and over towards Hole in the Wall Glacier. Taku Falls was right below us, a waterfall that falls 600 vertical feet feeding into the Taku River system!

It was beautiful. Coming around the corner and seeing Taku Glacier from the front was beautiful. Taku Glacier is the only glacier on the Juneau Icefield that is advancing, so you can see trees, rocks and more that are being moved forward with the momentum of the glaciers movements.

Once off the helicopter,

we got to walk around on Taku Glacier for about an hour.

It was breathtaking to say the least… see all the pictures I have included. On the flight home we flew over Norris Glacier,

saw ice dams, and other amazing views,

until finally we were back to the airport in JNU, what a great day.

Sunday/Monday Sept. 2, 3, 2012

Our friends Matt and Kelly have a cabin up the Taku River and invited us to join them for the long weekend. They took their boat up on Sat. but we opted to fly on the ‘dead head’ flight to Taku Lodge on Sunday. The flight was $65 person, to simply be dropped at their dock. On the flight we saw the normal valleys and peaks but one neat view was that of the water below. In this shot you can see where the river water meets the ocean water. The river because it is made by glacial water is gray and made of fine silt (sand like) which is really just fine ground up rock from the ice moving over it.

Matt and Kelly came on their river boat and loaded us for the ride back to their cabin.

Riding on the river was such an amazing sight! There are waterfalls coming down on all the rocks towards the south side of the ride and 3 glaciers on our north side, Hole in the Wall, Taku and Norris.

We got to the cabin, off loaded some gear and took off again for more exploring! This is when the fun began!!!
We got up near Davidson Creek and thought it would be fun to go to the front where it flows into the river/ocean. We were attempting to find the slough that would lead us there but instead we got into the wrong slough and headed towards the opposite direction. Before long, we were stuck!

Stuck in the low tide, mucky, muddy shallow slough of some other falls. Kelly and Harry jumped turn us around, I hopped out to lessen the weight load and Matt stayed in boat to try to get motor back on and drive it out.

It took a good 45 minutes of pushing, pulling, tugging and such to get the boat out of the slough and to high enough water (1 foot was all we needed) to ride the boat back to the cabin.I basically walked out over the mudflats, but it felt more like cross country skiing! I ‘slid’ across this mud.

Each of us was muddy and wet, most of us got water in our boots.

We laughed a lot during the time, and it was not really scary because we knew the tide would eventually go the other way and get higher. The scariest part was probably after we got in deeper water and took off at a good pace, me up front, Harry and Kelly in the middle and Matt in the back driving, and BOOOOMMMM we hit a rock! Harry said my feet went up in the air and the look on my face was priceless. We were all okay, but it was funny.
That evening we had a nice dinner in the cabin, honkered down for a good nights rest, and awoke to a cloudy, socked in Sunday morning.

Bummer, we could not enjoy the view as much as we might have on a good day.

We hiked the property, looked at the old cabin, sat in the hot tub,

YES, I said hot tub, read for a while and headed back to town mid afternoon.
It was a great weekend, but you will notice immediately by looking at these pictures, the difference between a sunny day and a cloudy day in SE Alaska! These maps might begin to show you where we were… you can see downtown Juneau with the A and then the cabin at the B.